Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HOSPENTHAL, by NATHANIEL LANGDON FROTHINGHAM


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HOSPENTHAL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Full dawn upon the heights of st. Gothard!
Last Line: His matin-prayer aloud.
Subject(s): Hospenthal, Switzerland


FULL dawn upon the heights of St. Gothard!
Wild nature and rude life!
And close-heaped dwellings where few comforts are,
Seemed with them both at strife.

The desolate church spoke little to the soul;
And yet its claim would put,
When the quaint round-tower on its rocky knoll
Invited not the foot.

The stranger entered, peering dimly round;
No being met his sight;
No sign of motion and no breath of sound
Stirred in that early light.

He walked and gazed and mused awhile, when, look!
In funeral trappings dressed,
A child its last mysterious slumber took,
Christ's emblems on its breast.

Close by the altar's steps they laid it out, --
Out from all harm and dearth, --
And nearer than elsewhere, they did not doubt,
To the God of heaven and earth.

He was not now alone; the newly dead
A strange, sad presence made,
Which all night long its unheard lesson read,
Through the deep double shade.

No, not alone: lo, spirits back from the Lord,
A loved, lamented crowd!
He bent, like Jacob, o'er his staff, and poured
His matin-prayer aloud.





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